Rotating your Cigar Accessories

Is it Time to Switch Out Your Cigar Accessories?

I recently ran a survey question on Cigar Advisor asking if smokers rotated their cigar accessories. After all, you rotate your cigars, so why not your accessories? As of this writing, 37% did not rotate their cigar accessories, per se, they just wait until one or the other breaks and buy a new one. But running second at 31% was “It depends on the cigar.”

What’s interesting is that each of these tools can serve a specific purpose. For example, one of the reasons I switched to my twin torch was because the cigar I chose that night had a 50 ring, and the two flames seem to work better, especially during toasting. For even wider cigars, I might even pull out the triple flame. Sometimes I’ll opt for a V-cutter to clip a Torpedo, rather than a double blade. Or, I’ll use a punch cutter to make a “figure 8” or “cloverleaf” cut in the head of a 50+ ringer.

That said, one might be inclined to presume that a good number of cigar smokers also rotate their lighters and cutters. According to the survey, only 18%. rotate their cigar accessories for the sheer purpose of giving them “equal usage.” However, if 31% of smokers are using different cigar accessories depending on the type of cigar they plan to smoke, then they really are rotating their cutters and lighters. I suppose I would be a member of this group.

What I find even more surprising is that 14% of the cigar smokers polled so far had only one cutter and lighter. Huh! I figured that even the one to three cigars-per-week smoker would have at least a couple of cutters and lighters. In my opinion, it is to every cigar smoker’s advantage to have a few couple or even a few of each. You never know when your lighter is going to fire-off its last round ever, or when your cutter has become so dull, you might as well use a butter knife to clip it (though the latter is easier to gauge.)

If you’re among those who only have one cutter and lighter, now’s a great time to add at least another of each to your collection of cigar accessories. If you have a single flame lighter, pick up a dual or triple flame. If you prefer buying cheap cutters, be adventurous and pick up a high quality blade that will last more like two years rather than two months.

Finally, if you’re in the camp that has a good variety of cigar accessories, more power to you. Whether you intentionally rotate them is not all that important. It’s more like, if you got ’em, you might as well use ’em.

Gary Korb

Gary Korb has been writing and editing content for CigarAdvisor.com since its debut in 2008. An avid cigar smoker for over 30 years, during the past 12 years he has worked on the marketing side of the premium cigar business as a Sr. Copywriter, blogger, and cigar reviewer. A graduate of the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, prior to his career in the cigar business, Gary worked in the music and video industry as a marketer and a publicist.